working towards perfection (and failing)

Author: Katiefinger
(page 2 of 17)

Have you ever had an amazingly profound experience, one which blows your mind? You’re just casually reading something online and suddenly your head says, ‘yep, I know that’s true!’ and tears form at the corners of your eyes?

I had that experience one night this week. I suppose it must be what religious people experience when they finally find God, or some other higher being. It’s a very powerful, incredibly intense feeling whereby your mind is sensationally blown.

At the time I was reading theories about different views on the universe and our place within it. There were two which I felt at ease with, as if I knew all along that it was true in much the same way my Baby Brother’s sexual preferences were something I always knew.

Firstly, we’re just a game. We’re simply Sims following the Fate of whatever our creator has in store for us. ‘God’ – or whomever we believe in {or not} – is just someone playing us on a computer screen. It explains my personal understanding of Fate and its relationship with Free Will, it gives a reason for those little glitches we all experience and an excuse for all those times things which don’t go as planned, the curveballs life throws at us. It also recognises that religious folk may be correct in their belief that there is a god – of some kind – who is all-knowing and all-powerful.

Secondly, and more interestingly for me, is the theory of ‘phenomenalism’. This is the idea that there is no existence without perception, the belief that objects only exist as a phenomenon of consciousness. When you are not aware of something, or interacting with it, it disappears. Poof! Gone. It only exists again when you interact with it again, in whatever form that may take.

And thirdly, what if we’re just brains in a jar. Or, I’m the brain in the jar and I’m ‘dreaming’ this life of mine. None of you reading this exist in reality; you’re all just figments of my overactive imagination playing a role of my choosing.

Maybe it’s a combination of all three, and possibly more. Perhaps I think too much and there is no Truth about our place within the universe. Perhaps I’ll wake up tomorrow.

I am not a mother. This isn’t through choice; it’s just the way life turned out. I still have a few child-bearing years so maybe Fate will bless me with a child one day, but I shan’t hold my breath.

I love my Mummy. She is the world to me. She’s my rock, my role-model, my mentor, my friend, my everything. She’s the one who sticks a plaster on my grazed knee, metaphorically speaking. I love her to the moon and back.

If I never have a baby I will never experience that. Nobody will ever love me to the moon and back. Nobody will run to me when they graze their knee, or their best friend makes them cry. Nobody will make me a homemade card saying, “Best Mummy Ever!” or grill my Yorkshire puddings or pay my nursing home fees. I won’t cry for anybody when they have their first heartbreak or get into uni.

I’ll never be a grandmother.

Mothering Sunday makes me feel inferior. It makes me feel like a failure. I haven’t grown anything in my womb. I haven’t been kicked by my unborn baby. I haven’t cried about not being able to breastfeed or been kept awake all night by a teething baby. When my friends on Facebook start gushing over their day, their *special* day, it makes me feel a little sad. “Oh, look how amazing I am,” they say. “I got this and that and the other thing!”

“Until you’ve had a baby you know nothing, least of all what real unconditional love is,” they say. Ouch. Kick me when I’m feeling down why don’t you. Besides, of course I know what real unconditional love is. I have a Mummy, siblings and nieces and nephews. I have a Husband who has tested my love to its limits. Real unconditional love isn’t limited to a child and its parents.

I think women {and men, let’s not forget those men who aren’t dads} like me should have a *special* day too. I just need to think of a name for it!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the UKian women, and for those who aren’t Mothers, Happy <must think of a name for it/> Day!

I am seriously considering writing my memoirs. It would be mostly for selfish reasons, and I probably wouldn’t even be gutsy enough to get it published, but it would be therapeutic and I do need therapy.

There is stuff in my life which is impossible to blog about, even in a fairly anonymous way. In conversations with YASiL yesterday I confessed that there are bits of my head which the world has never seen. She told me to write a book about it. So I will. I even have a title for it, but telling you that, dear Lone Reader, will create a bond between us which I’m just not ready for.

There have been regular occurrences throughout my childhood, adolescence and adulthood, concerning a variety of people, from friends, to family, to lovers, where I’ve thought to myself “I thought we’d never come back from that one”. More often than not though, we do come back from it, however tragic or horrid or electrifying ‘it’ was.

And life goes on. One day that life will die with me and nobody will ever know the truth. And I do have an insatiable need to tell the truth.

I am full of quirky ideas. Some people may consider my views of the world to be extreme in their naïvety, but I’m not going to apologise for these views.

I believe that we are all genuinely good at heart, even the most evil of us. All of us have the capacity to love and to feel, and to be loved in return. We may not always be deserving of that love but the potential is there.

I believe that we should all be forgiven for our mistakes, even those which make some people despise us. Without forgiveness it’s impossible for folk to truly learn from their mistakes. Hate the sin, love the sinner. To err is human. All that jazz.

I believe that we are all worthy of second chances. People are not one dimensional; there are layers upon layers upon layers to every single human. Situations, conversations, and experiences all change us. We can change from ‘good’ to ‘bad’ and back to ‘good’ a plethora of times in a single day.

I believe there is no black and white, and there are more than fifty shades of grey. We are all entitled to view the world as we see fit, even when that view is wrong. It is education and perseverance, understanding and trust which enables us to choose a more stable, sustainable path in life.

I know that some people think I look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles but I actually believe I’m just a realist. Good and bad exist. Brainwashing exists. People are always searching for the greener grass or the path to heaven. We can’t hope for society to right its wrongs if we simply label everyone and say they can’t deviate from that label, ever. Reasoning, understanding, empathy … they all play a big role in our existence, and sadly we aren’t all able to attribute these to everyday life.

In October I signed up to a site where you write posts, comment on other people’s posts and ‘like’ them too, if the mood takes you. I expected it to be full of farty-arty types, those who are fabulous with the written word, those who have chosen writing as a profession and are the dog’s bollocks when it comes to getting their ideas down on paper.

I was very much mistaken.

It’s a writing platform for anybody. Have a computer and a semi-literate brain? Then this is the site for you. It’s basically just a blogging/social media site which gives you a few pennies for posting stuff. I was expecting lavish articles on the world’s deepest mysteries. Instead I’ve been subjected to what Auntie Agnes thought of the jar of homemade jam she received for Christmas. I thought I might stumble upon some reviews or the occasional creative story, a work in progress. Instead there have been posts galore on how cold it is.

I do enjoy it. If I post a few ‘articles’ each day, like a few others and comment on those that pique my interest my ‘bank balance’ increases a little. When I get to $50 I can cash it in, via PayPal. All I really have to do is try hard to ignore the adverts at the side of the page; no biggie, I ignore them on Facebook too. I was never under any illusions … I’ve been blogging for years! It’s taken me over two months to get to $30, but I don’t waste hours a day on it.

In the last week the founders of the site have reviewed and subsequently changed the way that rewards are given. People went positively bonkers! I can understand them being angry about the fact that they won’t be receiving some pending payments, but I have no sympathy for them in failing to understand that the idea was never going to be sustainable in the long term. Many have gone off to Land Across the Yonder, where the grass is greener, without stopping to think that the newish site they’re migrating to also won’t have the money to sustain its ‘writers’. These are the people who are only in it for the money, the people who write about what they had for breakfast and still manage to garner a following of hundreds, those who actually can’t write because if they could really do it for a living they’d actually be getting paid to write as ghost writers, or for magazines.

It’s only the internet, guys. Get a grip. If you want more than pin money, this is not the way to earn it.

I trust that you are happy with yourself, that you sleep soundly after rubbing your hands together in glee at the frightful mess you made of my life.

I know that you’ve been whispering in the ear of 2015, making silly suggestions about how best to fuck up the next twelve months, but it won’t work. 2015 thinks you’re petty and vindictive. 2015 craves my love and wants me to be happy. In the battle of the years 2015 will always beat you, of that I’m sure.

I’m really sorry that you failed in your quest to make me SO miserable and SO frightfully sad that I’d cave in to my emotions. I am obviously far stronger than you gave me credit for.

I do wish you well, 2014. You taught me to hold my head up high, to trust my instincts and to love unconditionally. For that, I salute you. You showed me wickedness, but couldn’t make me crumble. For that, I salute myself.

Here’s hoping that 2015 is happy and humble, innocent and beautiful. I raise a glass to you, 2014, and banish you to The Past, for ever.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

When was the last time that sentence accurately described my life?

That sentence could have described my life at many different ages: Childhood, when my Father walked out, but I loved school {I was a nerdy five year old}; teenagehood, when I liked boys, but struggled with hormones; university days, when I blossomed and excelled at being three hundred miles from home, but longed for Mummy’s cuddles when drunk; being in love, yet getting beaten up … so many times this could have accurately described my life.

But most recently, is probably now. This year. Today. Tomorrow. 2014 has been a truly horrid year, and 2015 will no doubt be nearly as horrid. But I am still in love, I’m looking forward to spending time with family at Christmas, I’ll be able to get all broody when Husband’s niece makes an appearance and I still thoroughly enjoy my job.

I’m the girl with a smile on her face which hides a multitude of ‘stuff going on in the background which nobody knows about’.

It’s a ridiculous idea really, probably created by the same person who came up with the idea that your time will come, and that person probably had it all. It’s a concept designed to make us feel a little better about our situations and our problems.

The reality is that for most ordinary people, good things don’t just fall into their laps. If we all waited for everything to just happen our lives would be a chaotic mess. Life is about working hard and reaping the benefits of the effort we put in. I’m a great believer in that. It sort of contradicts my belief that Fate plays a great part in our lives, but doesn’t really detract from it.

Life is both a blessing and a curse. It’s frustrating, repetitive, ridiculous, and painful as well as happy, eventful and lovely. And yes, good things do sometimes come to those who wait, but bad things do too.

Our lives are like little waiting rooms. We wait patiently for buses, for feedback, for donor organs, in queues, on dating websites, and for the postman. We struggle to make ends meet, but know that one day those good things will come. We forego our holidays and our new cars, that perfect pair of shoes and the lover who got away, because we know that good things are just around the corner.

It’s a terribly dangerous concept.

‘Good things come to those who work hard, play hard and are kind to everyone, and even then the good things aren’t guaranteed’, is what the saying should be.

I’ve been waiting patiently for some good things, but good things are rare indeed.

I am completely and utterly in love with {most aspects of} my job. However, if I was given the option of having any job in the whole wide world, regardless of qualifications and experience, I would choose to be a bus timetabler.

Unfortunately for the local populace, I do lack the qualifications and skill set to actually be a bus timetabler. This is a pity because I think I would be most excellent at it.

Reasons why:

1. I like to listen to suggestions and take other people’s ideas into account. The average bus timetabler must spent his day with earplugs in his pretty little ears. He doesn’t want to listen to the folk who use the bus daily. He’s just interested in getting paid at the end of the month, and doesn’t care that his wages come predominantly from those whose journeys he makes as awkward as possible.

2. I actually use the bus. I believe a requirement of having a position as bus timetabler is that one must have never even seen a bus, let alone been on one.

3. I possess a little something that goes by the name of ‘common sense’. To be a successful bus timetabler one must have no common sense. It is not important to understand the concept of rush hour or rural villages. One does not need to make a distinction between people who work and people who don’t work.

And finally, 4. I would rebel against uttering the mantra by which all bus tImetablers must live: ‘Power to the car!’

{this post is inspired by the rumour that my local bus company may be removing a much needed evening bus; it may or may not be found elsewhere on the internet too}